Frames break numerous conventions that web users had grown used to, e.g. the possibility to save a specific website as a favourite or to mail the direct URL to a friend. In addition, when viewed with older browsers, frames disable the 'Back' button and make it impossible to print out the webpage. Frames are to be avoided as far as possible, even though later generation browsers can handle them better.
Source:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger
Further information:
http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?FramesAreEvil
The tested website does not use frames.
Intros inhibit website users to access the information they were looking for. In addition they convey the impression that the website owners place more importance on the design than on the offer of information or solutions to their customers. A website needs to instantly communicate what it is about and what a user can expect to find. The website must also take account of the little time available to the website user. It should be noted that users spend in average only 2 minutes on a website.
An intro page to allow language or regional choice is unnecessary, as there is a possibility to identify this automatically.
Javascript intros for re-directing and configuration purposes are also discouraged, even though users hardly notice them, as they have an impact on search engines and accessibility. Nowadays there are better alternatives to be used server-side.
Please note that you may not be able to see an intro page, depending on language settings, IP address and other user criteria. The intro page may, however, show for other users, and it is available for search engines, spiders and bots.
Source:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger
Further information:
http://www.kundennutzen.ch/intros.php
http://nitzsche.info/de.pub-2-vorschaltseiten.php
No intro page was found on the tested website.
The website must contain a precise "title tag", a page title. This is based on the following:
- The title is displayed on the title bar of the browser window.
- The title is used when setting a bookmark (or favourite).
- The file title is shown in the browser in the list of pages previously searched.
- Many search engines offer the title as a hyperlink.
- Search engines use the content of the title for their search.
- Website users often only read the first words and should therefore have enough information about the website.
Therefore, default titles such as "untitled document" or "untitled page" or just "title" are not useful.
Further information:
http://www.aboutwebdesign.de/awd/content/1089111663.shtmlhttp://ranta.info/ThemaTitle
The tested website contains a page title.
The website must contain a precise and meaningful "title tag", a page title. This is based on the following:
- The title is displayed on the title bar of the browser window.
- The title is used when setting a bookmark (or favourite).
- The file title is shown in the browser in the list of pages previously searched.
- Many search engines offer the title as a hyperlink.
- Search engines use the content of the title for their search.
- Website users often only read the first words and should therefore have enough information about the website.
Equally important is the choice of precise and meaningful titles. The content should be summarised in the title, helping users to find the information needed. According to Nielsen, titles should not be longer than 60 characters.
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger and
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html,
http://www.usability-now.com/suchmaschinenoptimierung/.
The tested website complies with this requirement.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
"Times New Roman" is the font mostly used in printing. For online usage, however, it is advised to use it with a size of 12 points or more. Basically, Nielsen does not advise to use it, as it is not perceived as being professional and does not appeal to any age group.
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger
No Times New Roman font was found on the tested website.
This page is optimized for ... or "Best viewed with Netscape Navigator and 800x600" reduce unnecessarily the usability of a website and tell the website user to choose the "correct" configuration to allow an optimised display of the website. It is the duty of the website owner (web designer) to create a site so that it remains functional without loosing appeal in as many browsers and browser configurations as possible.
Further information:http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art2.htm ""This page optimized for ..." - arguing with customers -" the website Design Group.
No text reading "This page optimized for ..." was found on the tested website.
Marking previously visited hyperlinks helps users to identify which pages of the website have previously been read. In other words, according to Nielsen the navigation interface should answer three essential questions: "Where am I?", "Where have I been?" and "Where can I go?"
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger and "Designing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen
Previously visited hyperlinks are marked accordingly. Make sure that the marking is obvious enough, without highlighting the link itself but by keeping a contrast with the background.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
Internet users expect hyperlinks to be either coulour coded or underlined. Therefore, the tag "underline" should not be used for non hyperlinked text. Using the tag "underline" for non hyperlinked text confuses the user, making it more difficult to recognise genuine hyperlinks.
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen and Hora Loranger
http://www.usability.ch/Alt_nav/Alertbox/NJ_20040510.htm
No "underline" tages for non hyperlinked text were found on the tested website.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
Blinking and moving text should be avoided. website users would like to read at their own pace and usually they class moving text as unimportant ads. Static text can be read quicker by users and does force them to wait for returning text. Furthermore, problems may arise when printing the page.
Source and further information: "Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger, as well as hints on http://www.barrierefreies-webdesign.de/
No blinking or moving text was found on the tested website.
HTML is only one of a series of markup languages, though it is the best known one. HTML is relatively old and has seen various, rather different variations. The Document Type Declaration indicates which markup language and which version of it has been used. A sorting software, e.g. a web browser, can understand this indication.
Source and further information: http://de.selfhtml.org/html/allgemein/grundgeruest.htm.
The tested website contains a Document Type Declaration.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
So called "black lists" are kept worldwide to avoid spam. The lists contain domains, e-mail addresses or IP addresses. Incoming e-mails can be treated separately if they are found to relate to one of the criteria listed. This can range from completely deny reception to a delay, from deletion to the marking as spam. Black lists can be kept locally or centrally on servers, in what is called a "Realtime Blackhole List" (RBL).
Currently, the tested Domain is not listed in any on the reviewed black lists.
A text in upper case reduces the reading speed by approx. 10%. The single words of the text are not easily recognised by the eye, and the whole text blurs into a block. A text in upper case is perceived as aggressive, amateurish, childish and unprofessional. Use upper case only for short titles.
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger.
Compare also with Schriver, Karen in Dynamics in Document Design, page 274:
"When text is set in all capital letters, reading speed is slowed about 13 to 20 percent. Reading speed is optimal when uppercase and lowercase letters are used. When extra emphasis is needed, bold has been found to be a better cue than uppercase."
No text in upper case has been found on the tested website.
A table based layout carries many disadvantages if compared to a purely CSS layout. A CSS layout improves both accessibility and performance.
Further information:
A detailed article by Douglas Bowman can be found onhttp://www.stopdesign.com/articles/throwing_tables/.
Hint for webmasters: Be sure that when embedding third party content, e.g. with iFrame, there are no layout tables included.
The tested website does not use table layout.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
An image map is a graphics file with clickable areas to re-direct users. This means that single areas of the graphics file can be defined in such way that they act like a link in a text. By clicking on the specific area, the users are taken to an external URL or to pre-defined are of the website.
Image maps contain problems, especially when they contain barriers. A solution for barrier-free image maps can be found on http://expertinnen-web.de/2006-115/barrierefreie-image-maps/
Further information: http://de.selfhtml.org/html/grafiken/verweis_sensitive.htm
The tested website complies with the requirements.
Name servers should be placed in different physical locations.
"It is recommended that three servers be provided for most
organisation level zones, with at least one which must be well
removed from the others. For zones where even higher reliability is
required, four, or even five, servers may be desirable. Two, or
occasionally three of five, would be at the local site, with the
others not geographically or topologically close to the site, or each
other."
Source and further information regarding the amount and location of a second name server can be found in RFC2182 3.1.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2182.html
The tested website complies with this requirement.
To abstract design from the structure and the content, HTML should contain classes. Classes are invisible to web site users, and allow to classify elements, paragraphs, areas, etc.
The website designer can select and re-format classes with a stylesheet. Classes are only necessary if they differentiate elements, paragraphs, areas, etc. A common mistake is for instance the classification of all elements of one type, which does not add any value but makes the HTML and CSS code unnecessarily long, complex and difficult to understand. Such cases are also referred to as "Classitis", see also
http://www.bs-markup.de/blog/archiv/2005/06/30/dr-css/ .
Another typical error is the wrong naming of the classes.
An article detailing these problems can be found on the seven49.net - Papers.
/Web/de/Papers_Links/Bezeichnung_von_IDs_und_Klassen.htm
The tested website complies with the requirements.
Search engines do not include pages in their indexes which contain "?id=" or "&id=" in their URL or query string. Examples:
http://www.anyaddress.com/index.html?id=727
http://www.anyaddress.com/products.aspx?category=3&id=7
Google does actually index those pages since Autumn 2006, in contrast to their previous practice. Still, those URLs are not advisable since they do not specify how other objects are called, they mean nothing to users and they are not optimised for search engines. An additional tool is available for this test, which allows to highlight any warnings, tips and hints in the source text of the website. You can find this tool here:
http://www.qualidator.com/Web/en/ProductsServices/SiteAnalyzer2.htm
"If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few."
Bad examples:
http://www.irgendeineadresse.com/index.html?id=727
http://www.irgendeineadresse.com/products.aspx?category=3&id=7
Source:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
The tested website complies with the requirements.
"According to RFC 2616, Internet HTTP Compression is a method to send, from the Web server, an HTTP response message in compressed format to a requesting Web browser.
HTTP Compression saves transfer data volume and reduces web page load time." As there are some known issues with Internet Explorer 6 you may want to disable compression for IE6.
Source: http://www.http-compression.com/
The website uses a GZIP or deflate compression for CSS files.
Names of links should be short, precise and meaningful. Links such as "more" or the die character sequence ">>" should be avoided, as the user should be specifically told what "more" can be expected.
Source and further information:
"Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen/Hoa Loranger; there are also good examples on http://de.selfhtml.org/html/verweise/definieren.htm
The tested website complies with the requirements.
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The tested website successfully passed this test.
Older web projects were often designed with so-called "empty images" (i.e. images without content, used as placeholder). This technique is now outdated and should be replaced with CSS features such as "Padding" and "Margin". This allows an increased performance of the website, as well as a strict separation between design and content, and an abstraction of the design from the structure.
Further information:
http://seybold.jan-andresen.de/05killer.php
No empty images were found on the tested website.